“Simon.”
“Are you aware if you chide me with my name three times, I only get worse?” I grin at Bea.
She fights a valiant battle but ultimately loses to the smile blossoming on her face.
“Can we really get autographs with our orders?” the lone gentleman inquires.
“Certainly.”
“Can we get selfies too?”
“With extra orders of fries. Which are truly their own reward, but as I’m here today, I may as well be a side benefit.”
I wait for theSimonto come, but Bea merely slides me an exasperated look.
Still with a smile.
“I told six friends you’re working at the burger bus today,” the third woman announces, holding up her phone.
“Brilliant. Fish and chips for you then?”
They all three order fish and chips, the gentleman with extra chips, so I pose for a photograph with him.
Bea bumps my hip with hers, and I step aside so that she can hand two burger baskets through the window to our first customer.
“My autograph?” she asks me.
Bea hands me a Sharpie, then returns to the grill.
Pinky appears with a stack of my headshots and a scowl aimed my way.
Good man.
He reads situations well.
“Bea’s cooking us a feast this evening,” I tell him.
“Only if I lose,” she calls from the fryer station.
“Thought we were having a quiet writing day,” Pinky says to me.
I smile at him. “Best laid plans, old chap. Bea, could you?—”
Before I can finish my sentence, she’s bumping me out of the way again and holding out a burger basket for Pinky. “I hope he pays you well.”
“Well enough,” Pinky replies.
“Oh, shit, this isyourburger place?” the gentleman says to Bea.
She looks him up and down. “Surprise.”
He winces.
The two women with him square up and box him in. “You got a problem with Bea?”
“You know how much she’s done for her family and this community since her parents died?”
“She’s the reason my sons had busing in high school.”
